The Louisiana Episode Of ‘The Simple Life’ From 2004 Is Reality Show Gold [VIDEO]

In honor of #TBT let's take a look back at the time Paris Hilton & Nicole Richie came down to Cajun Country.

Reality shows are pretty much the standard when it comes to television programming today, but to truly appreciate how far they've come you have to go back and see what reality television looked like around the turn of the century.

It's really incredible to think about the concepts that surrounded "hit" shows like 'The Simple Life' but for whatever reason, people were glued to their televisions and in the pre-on demand era even went out and bought full seasons on DVD.

The Simple Life's premise was pretty simple: Two Hollywood socialites "forced" to travel the country with no access to their cellphones or (parents') bank accounts. Enter Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton, two wealthy city girls who were depicted in the series, struggling "to do manual, low-paying jobssuch as cleaning rooms, farm work, serving meals in fast-food restaurants, and working as camp counselors."

The show aired for 5 seasons between FOX and E! for a total of 55 episodes that are all available to stream. In Season 2 the girls hit the road in a pink pickup truck pulling an Airstream trailer from coast to coast. Episode 5 of the Road Trip season brought the girls to the swamps of Cajun Country and the plot was as predictable as you would imagine.

The Louisiana swamps are the next location, staying with the Mequet family, including a teenage daughter named Jenny. Jenny is planning her first date, and Paris and Nicole are delighted when they are invited to take her shopping for an outfit. Given the family credit card, and a limit of $75, unfortunately, the girls are not small-spenders, bringing a grand total of their spree to $489.76. The girls' job will be to catch several full sacks of crawfish, much to their disgust, and of course, they catch only a small amount of what was expected. That night during a barbecue, Paris manages to steal several pounds of cooked crawfish and take them home in a purse. The next day, the girls plan to use the cooked crawfish in place for crawfish they actually caught themselves.

I'm sure everyone featured in this episode still talks about their experience with Paris & Nicole to this day. Who knows, maybe they're still in touch?

Either way, I hope you appreciated this local throwback gold. Is there a reality show from back in the day that featured Louisiana that you remember vividly? Comment with your favorite now!